Sonnet No 54
by Ltldogduff
Summary: Catherine and Edgar alone in the room when he came by while Hindley was gone... what happened between them. Didn't know what to call it so decided to just name it after some random sonnet... PLEASE R&R!


Disclaimer: Emily Bronte, my idol, wrote "Wuthering Heights" and all the characters, places, scenes, etc. belong solely to her.

**_"She, supposing Edgar could not see her, snatched the cloth from my hand, and pinched me, with a prolonged wrench, very spitefully on the arm...I started up from my knees and screamed out, 'Oh, Miss, that's a nasty trick! You have no right to nip me and I'm not going to bear it.'...She stamped her foot and wavered a moment, and then, irresistably impelled by the naughty spirit within her, slapped me on the cheek a stinging blow that filled both eyes with water...Edgar thoughtlessly laid hold of her hands to deliver him. In an instant one was wrung free, and the astonished young man felt it applied over his own ear in a way that could not be mistaken for a jest. He drew back in consternation. I lifted Hareton in my arms, and walked off to the kitchen with him, leaving the door of communication open, for I was curious to watch how they would settle their disagreement." -Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte_**

"Catherine?" Edgar touched her shoulder in a burst of care and sympathy. He was appalled by her actions but unconvinced that the real Catherine had had any say in them.

She shook and sobbed and said, "What Edgar? I have done wrong to Nelly, and I am angry with myself and she undoubtedly hates me." She sniffled between every few words.

"Maybe a little anger, dear Catherine, but she could never hate such a creature…you have struck me, and yet I cannot find any hate to bear for you." Edgar replied affectionately, wiping away her tears.

"I just wanted to be alone…Edgar, you understand that, don't you? I feel as though I am never truly alone about this place…" her voice died off as she began sobbing again.

"There, there, Catherine, it will all be well soon." Edgar pulled a soft handkerchief out of his coat pocket and offered it to her. She graciously accepted it. "But if you wanted to be alone, you could have wished me to leave. I would not have been angered,"

"Oh, Edgar. I didn't want to be alone with myself, but with you! Don't you see?" Catherine looked up at him, and saw that his pale face bore the softest, gentlest of expressions.

"Ah! I see. Yes, Catherine, I see." He replied.

She lightly fingered his face where she had slapped him. "I am truly sorry for hurting you, Edgar. Dear, sweet Edgar."

"It only stung here for a moment," he took her hand from his cheek to his heart, "but it still stings here, Catherine. Please, please promise to me that you will never do that again,"

"I won't! Oh, that was a very naughty thing to do and I am ever sorry that I did it. I promise, Edgar." Catherine used his handkerchief to wipe away the tears on her face.

"And while we're on the subject of promises…" he stood from where he was kneeling with her before and pulled from his coat a ring, which had been his mother's, and his father's mother's, and his grandfather's mother's…all up the family tree. "Catherine Earnshaw, will you give me your hand in marriage?"

Tears came to her eyes. Her mouth moved in the purpose of words, but they were inaudible. Finally, she found her voice.

"Yes! Oh, Edgar, I _do_ love you!" She was so happily overwhelmed, caught up, tangled in the moment…so tangled indeed that she did not make out a retreating figure in the open lattice.

Edgar came to embrace her, kissed her softly on the cheek, and slipped the ring onto her slender finger. Then, he bid her adieu, for Hindley had arrived back.

"I will come again, Catherine!" he called to her as they waved goodbye.

She smiled and waved, as he rode off into the distance, and walked back into the house and shut the door. She touched her cheek where his soft lips had graced it, looked down to her hand, which bore the ring, the symbol of the rest of her life.

And then comprehension began to dawn, slowly, and the smile slid right off her rosy features.

_Heathcliff…_

She gently pulled the ring off her finger and poked it in her bodice. She needed to think.

She hated herself for not thinking of him…Heathcliff had been there from the beginning, not Edgar. True, Edgar was much kinder and levelheaded than Heathcliff had ever been. Oh, he was still such a child! But it would greatly change everything…what if she couldn't see him after she was married? The very thought brought tears to her eyes, and she wiped them away with Edgar's handkerchief that she had just now realized she had forgotten to return to him.

Catherine looked left, and then right, and decided to sneak out the door and take a walk on the moors, tearing up as she left.


End file.
